


though i sang in my chains like the sea

by Anemoi



Category: Football RPF
Genre: F/M, Liverpool F.C., M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:10:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anemoi/pseuds/Anemoi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a love story, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	though i sang in my chains like the sea

**Author's Note:**

> a _lot_ of Liverpool feelings, so be warned.

If there's anything Steven's learnt about first impressions, it's that they often ring false.

 

The first time Steven sees Alex she's buying a bouquet at the florists' on Stanley Road, next to the supermarket. The problem is, he doesn't really see her. Steven bumps in to her as he's going in to the supermarket to buy a six pack of beers for Carra's party in the evening, thumbing at his phone to check which brand Carra wanted. He does it hard enough to knock her flowers out of her hands, and they land, skewed and scattering petals, in the gutter.

“Oh god! I'm so sorry.” He says, bending down to scoop them up and realizing it was too late and they were beyond scavenging. He looks up, squinting, and she's beautiful, tall and blonde and perfectly made up. Steven's heart drops to somewhere below his knees. Her brows were knitted and her mouth twists when their eyes meet.

“I'm. Sorry. I'll buy you another one.”

“Yeah, you better.” She says, rolls her eyes and follows him back to the shop. She orders them at the counter while Steven watches, shoulders hunched and uncomfortable.

“A dozen cabbage roses again, please.” Her voice emphasizing 'again' with a dirty look thrown in Steven's direction. He picks a note out of his wallet and puts it down on the counter, not looking at her, and shifts from foot to foot.

“Sorry.” He says again when they walk out of the store together. She spares him a final glance, eyes softer than they were before.

“Look where you're going next time.” She says, and walks away, stepping over the ruins of her first bouquet. Steven stares after her, stunned like he'd just taken a bad header, entranced by the way her voice sounded, the way her hips swung as she walked.

 

Steven brings cabbage roses to their first date, and sees her eyes slowly gain recollection in amused delight (“That was _you-”_ ). That was two years later, and by then he'd grown in to someone that Alex looked at, and remembered.

 

-

 

The first time he meets Xabi he remembers with bizarre clarity, mostly because he'd been waiting to meet the new signing with trepidation. _Another Spaniard_ , he thinks, listening to him answer Rafa's questions in slow and heavily accented english. Between his own scouse and Xabi's accent, he wonders if they'd actually be able to understand each other well enough on the pitch. Xabi seemed too contained to be a footballer, some sort of innate stillness in his movements only betrayed by his quick eyes. They were very brown up close, Steven notices, when they shake hands. He's got a firm grip too.

Steven shakes his head at the thought, introduces himself in his best captain voice. Xabi didn't seem taken in, and he'd only smiled at Steven when Steven asked him how he found England so far to fill up the silence, while they waited for Rafa to pick through one last detail with Xabi's manager.

“Not so different.” Xabi says finally, still smiling. It wasn't a full blown smile that changed the shape of his face, just something knowing and small, like he was sharing a secret with Steven.

“Not cold? Too rainy?” Steven asks, scratching his head. Spain always conjured up thoughts of sunny beaches to him.

“I'm from north of Spain. Rainy.” Xabi waves his hands to emphasize. Steven grins as Xabi's manager comes back, holding out a piece of paper and a pen.

“Welcome to the team, Alonso.” Steven says, standing up. He holds out his hand again, and this time Xabi smiles wide, his eyes crinkled, and Steven fights a shiver though his hand was warm in his.

 

But the first time he really _meets_ Xabi it's on the training grounds at Melwood. It was a normal day, a normal drill, Carra muttering complaints in his ear as they stretched together while Steven tried not to roll his eyes too hard. Then they'd teamed up for a five a side, Steven and Xabi in neon orange bibs.

They worked. Steven was shocked at how well they worked. He looks at Xabi and it was like the heavens opened up and the light shone through and illuminated him in all his nonchalant spanish glory as he passes to Steven without even turning his head, scythes through Sami and Luis like they weren't even there. Steven closes his mouth in time to catch the ball and slots it home past Pepe's outstretched hands, without even thinking.

There's a pause as everyone sizes Xabi up, and then Finnan whoops and throws his bib in the air. “We got ourselves a _maestro,_ fuckers!”

Xabi shrugs, tip of his tongue caught in his teeth. He grins as they pile on to him, clapping his back, but he's watching Steven.

Steven shakes himself out of the dreams of glory that had just passed in front of his eyes, something so fucking tangible that he can't quite breathe with the wonder of it. He smiles, so wide it must be splitting his face, and watches Xabi smile back like he knew exactly what Steven was thinking, and Steven feels his heart stutter and trip in his chest.

 

-

 

 

Steven doesn't remember the first time he went to a match in Anfield, or the first time he fell in love with Liverpool. He wished he had a clear moment, that one match or something he could pinpoint as the day he gave his heart away to the club.

He supposes he was probably too young to remember it clearly, but still the earliest memory he had was sitting in the Kop, waving the end of his dad's scarf. He supposes he'd looked out at the 100 by 70 yards of green, and he'd just fallen in love like the Princes in stories fell in love with Princesses they saw in high towers, love at first sight, pure magic. He supposes he'd said, solemn eyed as a 6 year old, that he wanted to grow up and be one of those red men on the pitch. He supposes his dad had laughed then, and lifted Steven on to his shoulders to sing _You Never Walk Alone_.

 

Steven doesn't remember but he knows, and he supposes that means everything.

 

 

-

 

 

But as a kid he was all fire and rush, no thought. The managers from United and Villa and Chelsea turned away frowning, put their hats back on their heads, walked out with their hands in their pockets frustrated by the fact that they drove out to see this boy. This boy, Steven, looking after them with all the hungry flames that licked the inside of his heart, proud and angry and more determined than ever. They weren't what he wanted, anyway. There was only one thing he ever wanted.

He gets it, of course, and signs for Liverpool straight out the academy.

It was still hard, even for someone who believed like he did, who was as talented as he did. It was hard- not the faith, but trying to enforce it, carve it in to something tangible in this world. All he knows is that he _wants,_ can't settle for less, wants a permanent place in the first team, wants the captain's armband, wants trophies to put in glass cases at Anfield. He wants to go out to bars in the city and have men his dad's age clap him on the back and tell him he did good, he did. He wanted to stroll down the street after scoring the winning goal in a home game. He wants to win the League, he wants to win the Champions league, and if he does that he wants to do it all over again, with Liverpool. Always with Liverpool, though that stipulation doesn't make it in to conscious thought. It was just there, nonnegotiable.

 And he does it, of course. Well, he gets his starting place, he gets the armband, he gets- after one unforgettable night, the fans singing in the stands, _'Don't fucking let them down'_ he remembers saying, heart so heavy he couldn't breathe with it, Xabi's penalty- the Champions League Trophy.

And one more memory, after that. Xabi's mouth, hot as a coal against his own.

 

-

 

What they had built up like a fire. Little things that fed the flame, like Xabi's fingers on the back of his neck, thumb innocuously slipping under the collar of his jersey. He retaliates by pulling him close after the next goal, presses his mouth to the soft spot behind his ear, hidden in the midst of all their screaming teammates. Xabi shivers, and their eyes meet when Steven pulls back to clap him on the shoulder, but he doesn't say anything. He never does, cultivates a careful distance between them, although it was strange in its intimacy.

Steven's exasperated but amused, feeling like he'd been too goddamn subtle. He looks at Xabi and he _wants,_ and what Steven wants Steven's going to get, language barriers and miscommunications be damned.

So he asks Xabi to stay behind and practice free kicks with him. The sky looked like it was about to piss rain any second and Pepe raises a judgmental eyebrow at him as he strips off his gloves and heads back in to the locker room, but Xabi shrugs and says, “Sure.” in that spanish accent of his, puts his sweaty training shirt back on.

It does start raining when they drag out a sack of footballs to a goal. It's only August though, so it was warm rain, and Steven whoops and stands under the sky with his mouth open, grinning. He catches Xabi's eye as he stands there, hands on his hips, expression unreadable.

“Stop frowning, mate, you're going to get wrinkles before you hit 25.” Stevie says, licking the raindrops off his lips and walking closer. Xabi's eyes get dark.

“Close your eyes.” Steven says, finally, stopping a step in front of him. The rain was soaking through his shirt, slicking the fabric against his skin, outlining the grooves of his hips. Xabi's eyes flicker down his body.

“What are you going to do?” Xabi says, wary.

“Just do it.” Steven says, putting his captain voice on, but only gently, half self- mocking. Xabi smiles at that, seeing through his pretense, but he doesn't close his eyes.

“Steven.”

Steven scratches his head. The raindrops were building up on Xabi's eyelashes. “Just trust me mate. Close your eyes if you trust me.”

Xabi sighs, then, and lets his hands fall away from his hips, eyes sliding shut. His expression looked like a man steeling himself for a cold mud pie in the face.

Steven smiles to himself, because Xabi can't see him. He leans in carefully through the rain, kisses the hollow of Xabi's throat, open mouthed. He feels Xabi shudder under him, full body jerk as he startles out of his stillness, eyes opening and pupils blown wide.

“Stevie-” He says, and pulls Steven in. Their mouths meet, Steven's hands coming up to tangle in Xabi's too long hair, Xabi's hands sliding under Steven's shirt, and they're finally, finally, aflame.

 

 

 

-

 

 

He phones Xabi at nights sometimes, when he couldn't sleep. Sometimes the nights dragged on too long, and Steven couldn't wait for the morning to tell Xabi about the new season, how they were going to tear all the other teams apart, _really, mate, come on, we are, believe it._ He tosses around in his bed, too wired for his mind to quieten, limbs trembling with nervous tension.

So he phones Xabi, who'd pick up after 4 rings with a sleepy grunt, and then drove over, or made Xabi drive over to his. Sneaking out on Alex left only the faintest trace of guilt on his heart, mostly overshadowed by the fact that- they were in _love_ , him and Xabi, and it wasn't the kind that he and Alex shared, the one with church bells and babies in carriages in the future. They were in love with Liverpool, the promise of things to come, the bloody raw power of being with each other, and talking with Xabi, even if it was about absolutely nothing, made Steven feel calm. It was the stillness in Xabi's face, and the way he carried himself, something Carra would probably describe as putting on airs, but Steven liked. Xabi was- Xabi was, well. He's the best midfielder Steven's ever played with.

 

He takes Xabi to Albert Docks in the middle of the night, one time. They leave the car in the middle of the empty car park and strolled to the water's edge, Xabi walking with his hands tucked in to his coat pockets, warily looking at the drunkards lolling about on the street corners. They lean against the railings, shoulder to shoulder. Steven looks out across the water, not seeing anything.There's no evidence of the water being there at all, except the dull glimmers of street lights on waves, the quiet hush of it lapping against the shore.

“We can really do it this season.” Steven says, and he believed it more than anything he's ever believed in, more than gravity or the sun or the blood rushing through his own veins. He turns back to Xabi, but Xabi was already looking at him, small smile on his lips.

“You don't believe me, mate?” Steven says. He reaches out a hand to slide under Xabi's shirt, because he hadn't buttoned it all the way to the top. Steven's hand fits against the side of his neck, his thumb brushing against Xabi's pulse, and Xabi swallows, leaning in to him imperceptibly. Steven takes his hand back.

He stretches, shirt riding up under his jacket. “Come on then.” He says, and walks back to the car, feeling Xabi's gaze on him all the way.

They were desperate and delirious like two teenagers, and Xabi blows him in the backseat. Steven swears up a storm, one hand fisted in Xabi's thick brown hair, the other hanging on to the back of the car seat. Xabi links their fingers together, after. Steven let him, looks at their hands settled on the center console with a strange feeling in his chest.

“I do.” Xabi says, soft, from the driver's seat.

“What?” Steven says, propping himself up to look at him. A single ray of orange light fell in a strip across Xabi's face, highlighting his cheekbones, illuminating that smile that was only for Steven, that smile that confirmed everything that Steven only knew by instinct.

“I do believe you.” Xabi says, and leans across to kiss him again.

 

They also played together and it was somehow even better than sex, better than anything Steven could think of. He catches himself staring at Xabi sometimes, zoning out, and Xabi returns his stare, level eyed. Xabi _knew._ Steven didn't know what he knows, but- Xabi knew. Xabi understood, could probably explain it to Steven but Steven didn't want the thing in words because he likes it better as – as a feeling.

 

This, the feeling of the perfect free kick, the ball hitting his instep, and this, Xabi's sly backheel pass to him in the midst of a game, and this, Steven's long ball finding Xabi's feet. And this- how in the midst of all their teammates after one of Xabi's unbelievable goals, and everyone's screaming, hands on his arms and around his neck- he tips his closed eyes up to the sun, and it was red, red, red under his eyelids.

 

 

-

 

It doesn't last, because it was football. And because it was football, Steven understands why Xabi has to leave. He gets a text from Xabi, clipped words saying in no uncertain terms that his deal was going through, that his flight was already booked.

He types, quick before he could regret it, _Want me to help pack?_

And then he drives over anyway, not waiting for a reply. Xabi opens the door to him, three days worth of beard on his face, dark hollows under his eyes.

“Where's Nagore?” Steven says, taking off his jacket.

“She 's already in Madrid.” Xabi says. He doesn't ask why Steven's here. There are cardboard boxes everywhere, the living room already stripped clean, looking strangely vulnerable without all of the Alonso's memorabilia.

Xabi's bookshelf was still half full, and Steven gestures at it, amused. “What were you gonna do with all this?”

Xabi shrugs, moving back to what he was doing before Steven came. He takes a book off the shelf and flicks through it, showing Steven the title. _Moby Dick._

“I was supposed to put them all in boxes today, but I kept getting distracted.” Xabi tells him, smiling faintly. “I didn't know I had this many books.”

Steven rolls his eyes at him. He picks one up off the top shelf and raises his eyebrows. “What is this? Poetry?”

Xabi shakes his head, exasperatedly fond, and takes it from him. “Yes.” He flips a couple pages and looks back up at Steven, quick smile curving up his lips. He reads, “'The beloved doesn't/ need to live. The beloved/ lives in the head.” Theres a quiet pause after he stops reading, the words suspended in air between them. Steven's heart clenches.

He tosses a magazine at Xabi. “Come on, Shakespeare. We'd never be done at this rate.”

Xabi slides the thin volume carefully in to a cardboard box, his head lowered so Steven couldn't make out his expression.

“Don't go.” He says, watching Xabi. It tears out of him and he was helpless to stop it. Part of Steven wants to go back through time and stop himself from saying those damning words, but. It was out now. It was said.

“Steven.” Xabi straightens up, rubs a hand over his face. He turns to Steven and his eyes were pained. _When did he get those faint lines on his forehead?_ Steven thinks. _That beard sure makes him look 4 years older._

“I know I said I understood.” Steven says. He stacks books mechanically on top of each other, not looking at the titles, then throws the whole thing in a cardboard box. He doesn't care if the edges folded or the spines bent. “I know. But I'm still asking you. Don't go.”

He can feel Xabi's stares, even though Xabi doesn't say anything. Then he comes over and takes the last book out of Steven's hands, pushes him against the half empty bookshelf. Steven's trembling, his knees weak. “Don't leave.” He says in to Xabi's hair, and Xabi's sharp intake of breathe doesn't escape him, but he's still not saying anything. He raises his head and kisses Steven's mouth, like he was trying to stop Steven from saying those words again, kisses him long and slow and unhurried like they have all the time left in the world instead of 2 days. 48 hours. 2880 minutes, and however many fucking seconds that amounted to ticked away treacherously by his throbbing heart.

They fuck against the bookshelf, and its rough and uncomfortable and Steven's swearing, tears in the corners of his eyes and after Xabi comes he says- “I'm leaving Liverpool. I'm not leaving you.”

His forehead against the base of Steven's neck, his hand wrapped tight over Steven's on the edge of the shelf and Steven didn't have the heart to tell him that it amounted to the same thing, in the end.

 

 

-

 

Steven understands why Xabi left, because it occurred to him too. He's a _footballer,_ isn't he, he wants trophies too, the chance to play on a different pitch, to play with the best of the best. Liverpool no longer had that. Liverpool wasn't good enough for someone of Xabi's ability, his quick eye and his ruthless strategy and his beautiful passes.

Some part of Steven wants it too. Perhaps, if Xabi had asked him to, he would have thought about it. The offers were there, offers from Madrid and Munich and even Milan, but.

He doesn't understand himself anymore, and he wishes that Xabi was there to explain it to him. _Why did you smile like that, all those years ago? Was it because I made you believe?_

 

 

( _What did I do wrong that made you stop?)_

 

-

 

“He's leaving for good, then?” Alex says. She's unzipping her dress, a snug sheathed thing that made her legs look even longer than normal.

“Yeah.” Steven says. He undoes his tie and throws it across the room, where it lands behind the dresser.

Alex takes off her earrings, still with her back to him. She slips in to a nightgown and goes to the bathroom, scrubs the makeup carefully off her face. Steven watches, and he's wondering how Alex could have stood those years with Xabi in Liverpool. Of course she knew. They weren't subtle. How could she have stood to live with him, knowing that some nights he left her alone in their bed to run to Xabi, on fire with new ideas for the team, and now that Xabi was gone and he could admit it, on fire for him _._

She comes back and slides under the covers. Steven still hasn't taken off his shoes.

“I'm sorry.” He says. Alex looks up at him, and she looked- very knowing, all of a sudden. It jarred him, reminded him of Xabi's smile. But how could she possibly know, when she didn't care about football, made a point not to go to his matches unless it was an occasion. When she looks at his crest and it's only something he wears for work, like a tie pin for a banker, and it was only important to her by proxy of it being important to him.

But she's smiling, putting a hand on his cheek. It's a small, sad smile, and she says, “Don't be. Come to bed, yeah?”

So Steven does. The next day, he buys cabbage roses for her to find when she gets home, and leaves them on the kitchen counter, quietly blooming in a vase of water.

 

 

-

The mood in the locker room is a little dark at the beginning of the season, everyone conscious of Xabi's absence. Steven gathers them together before the first match, sums up every part of his belief and tells them that _this_ was it, this was their season.

“We're going to fucking do it.” He says, looks every one of them in the eye. “I fucking know it, lads.”

They believed him, because he believed it, because he had to believe. It was always that, nonnegotiable.

And if he was a little less convincing in a years time, same start of the next season, saying the same words, no one noticed enough to say anything about it.

 

-

 

He doesn't phone Xabi for a year after Xabi moved to Madrid. He thinks about it, but it all narrowed down to the fact that- they had nothing in common, really. Steven grew up on a council estate. Xabi grew up in a rich family in San Sebastian. They talked about football when they were together, because they were working towards the same goal back then. Xabi's wearing a white shirt now, Xabi's moved on.

That's what he tells himself, anyway, even though he remembers talking about _everything_ with Xabi, alternative rock bands and what food people ate in southern France and whatever pretentious movie Xabi wanted him to watch during the weekend, things that had nothing to do with football. They talked in Xabi's car till the horizon lightened up, talked till Steven fell asleep, face mashed against Xabi's chest.

 

But he doesn't text or call and Xabi doesn't, either, so that was that.

 

-

 

That is, until one day in January he gets a text from Torres. The season was just another season, Liverpool loitering in 6th place on the table, but Steven wasn't about to give up halfway through it. There was still- too much to fight for. But he reads Fernando's text, and theres a pin prick moment of despair, because Steven doesn't know what he could say, because he'd run out of words, in the end.

He thinks, _You should stay if you believe in us._ But Fernando didn't understand- his heart was all tied up with another red striped with white, a different group of people in another land.

Steven didn't know how to show Fernando what he saw. What he still sees. It was too trite to say all the words people said in circumstances like this. Or maybe it was just because- he didn't believe them himself.

He stares at Fernando's text for another minute, and types _Do whats good for you, Nando. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Do whats best for you._

 

He goes and stands out in the rain for a long time, because it wasn't cold and the night wasn't dark, the cloud underbellies illuminated with orange from all the lights in the city. The rain skids down his face, trickles through his fingers and slides, uncaring, down the backs of his aching knees. He texts Xabi that night, not even remembering what he sent, just that Xabi replied within a minute.

_This season's your season._ His text read. Steven stares at it, and it sounds like something he might have said once, but for the life of him he couldn't remember when. But he texts back, and Xabi keeps answering, and Steven falls asleep that night and dreams in red, for the first time in a long time.

 

 

The next day Fernando goes to Chelsea.

But three days later they sign Luis, and Steven watches his first training session like a hawk and feels that fucking bloom in his chest again, that tender excited fear of something too small to be called hope, but if done right- if they do this right-

They go again.

 

 

-

 

It takes two seasons of smolder before they fucking finally catch flame, and Steven thinks its worth it all, worth every night struggling with Brendan in his office over tactics and strategies, of playing that delicate chess game on paper and chalkboards. Then going out there, tearing them apart, Everton, Arsenal, Manchester United, they come and they fall because Liverpool was ruthless. Liverpool was _beautiful_.

It was finally his dream made in to reality, and Steven barely feels the rain anymore, he barely feels any of it, even though his ankles still throb at the end of a full match. He wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, and its only the thought- _this season. This season is our season_ that helps him grit his teeth through the mess of nerves and fear in his mind.A chant on loop that plays through his dreams, awake or asleep, and he swallows tylenol and chases it down with lucozade and focuses on the next game, and the next.

 

 

-

 

He phones Xabi when they lose to Chelsea.

“Fuck.” He says in to the phone. Xabi's sharp intake of breath sounds pained.

“Stevie.” He says, gently.

“It's over then.” He wants to burn something. A flag, his jersey, sheets of fucking paper, newspaper tabloids. He wants to swallow broken glass, walk on his knees to London, run until he couldn't breathe anymore.

“Stevie.” Xabi says, and now he sounds frustrated. It was the same old thing, and the knowledge of it makes Steven feels desolate, cold ice layering over his heart. Xabi was on the other side of the phone, on the other side of the sea, wearing the wrong colors. He couldn't help, even thought he wanted to so badly. They both struggled, in silence. Then Steven snaps.

“I don't know why I called.” He says, and hung up.

 

-

 

It's the last day of the season. All he knows is this- it wasn't their season. He spends an hour just driving around Liverpool after he gets the news. He doesn't want to go home, he doesn't want to turn on the tv and see an ocean of blue, someone else lifting that trophy ( _again)._

It starts to fucking rain on top of everything, raindrops like knife cuts when they hit the glass of his windshield. He stops at a red light and he doesn't know what he's doing, only startles out of it when the cars behind him start pressing their horns. The light had been green for a while.

So he turns the car around, he goes home. He staggers in to the house like he'd been drinking, even though he hadn't. Alex looks up from the kitchen island where she was sitting, reading a magazine with her hair tied up mussily in a topknot. Her face changes, flickers of surprise changing to concern to sorrow.

“Oh, Stevie.” She says, sliding off her stool and walking over to him. Steven drops his bag in the corner, and sits down. He couldn't make it to the couch, or the chairs. He just sits on the floor, puts his face in his hands. He feels Alex sit down beside him, her hands gentle as she cradled his head, her hair coming undone from her hairtie and falling like a soft curtain over him.

“Stevie.” She says, and her voice was so fierce he could almost believe that she wasn't trying to hold back tears.

“It's just a game. Stevie. It's just a- fucking- it's a fucking game, Steven Gerrard.” She says, though her voice breaks on his name. She kisses his hair, and his face, and rocks him, runs a hand down his back while he closes his eyes against her shoulder, loving her for not understanding it but understanding him anyway.

 

 

-

 

It was the worst three months of his life. There was no other way to think about it.

 

-

 

The new season and Luis is gone. Steven doesn't try to stop him this time, and maybe this is one thing he's learnt. To let go with grace, even though he's always kind of been the obstinate sort. It does come out a little, when he sees Luis for the last time in Anfield.

“You've thought about staying, yeah?” Steven says, puts out his hand.

Luis looks regretful. “Yes. Stevie. I can't.” He says, gripping Steven's hand.

“It's Barcelona, you know?” Luis adds, just as they were about to part.

“I don't.” Steven says with a slow smile. “Good luck, Luis.”

 

They buy Mario and it seems like a good bet, because God knows Liverpool's history with problematic strikers that turn to gold mines. Steven starts to feel hope, and its like sliding back on a worn out shirt, letting it settle as light as a feather on his heart.

 

 

-

 

Steven watches the team train and it's strange, because they were all so young. The responsibility didn't sit well on their shoulders, and the songs in the Kop only made them look around in wonder and confused pride. They didn't understand, not yet. They wanted something out of legend, but _they_ were the ones making the legend now, and it took its toll on them, losing matches. It took its toll on them, and they still didn't understand. They looked to Steven, hoping he'd explain.

He tries. He tries and tries, with everything he has, he scores and assists and crosses and tackles the opposition with brutal desperation, and sometimes it's enough but more and more it wasn't.

All the time and his hip aches and burns after every 90 minutes, and he doesn't say anything at all, but Brendan looks at him with a frown sometimes, looks at the way Steven touches his knees after matches, and one day he says, “Steven. I think we should talk.”

Steven walks out of his office and thinks, _so thats it then._

 

He goes home and says, “What do you think about LA?” during dinner.

Alex puts down her fork, chewing thoughtfully. “Why?” She says, looking at him, curious.

“What do you think about living there?” Steven says.

Alex starts to smile, props her chin on a hand as she twirls spaghetti on her fork.

“You're saying what I think you're saying, Stevie?” She says. Steven rolls his eyes at her. “We'd be like Posh and Becks.” She says, muffling a laugh.

“Nah.” Steven says. “You're not posh enough.” And ducks when Alex throws her napkin at him across the table.

He looks up, smiling, but Alex looks sad all of a sudden.

“You sure about this, Stevie?” She asks, soft.

“It'd be good for me. It'd be good for you, and the girls too. They need to get out of this city, y'know. They need somewhere bigger, somewhere new.” Steven says, not looking at her. He leaves his fork in his plate of spaghetti, untouched. “I'm sure. You?”

Alex smiles again, reaches across the table to put her hand in his.

 

-

 

He gets injured, and it's a bit disconcerting, like 2011 all over again but he's older and the aches take so much longer to fade. All Steven knows is he has to get fit fast, has to get out there on the pitch because the fans are still expecting silverware this season and with the way Hendo's leading the team, it's not something to rule out.

They'll end the season with something to remember him by, he thinks. It's the least Liverpool deserves. He hasn't texted Xabi at all after last season, or during the summer. Steven thinks if he were a bigger man he'd have congratulated Xabi on winning the Champions League, but knowing himself it would come out bitter. It would raise that question again, the _does it feel like when you won it with us_ question, and Steven couldn't- he couldn't drag out that mess, couldn't think about it because there was no use in thinking about what if's.

So when he picks up his phone to invite Xabi to his Charity match he doesn't know what Xabi would say.

He says yes.

 

 

-

 

It felt like snatching at ghosts, looking to his left and seeing Xabi there. Steven could almost pretend that they were playing an away game, if they weren't in Anfield, more familiar than his own home.

 

-

 

Later, whatever thoughts of ghosts and shadows were dispelled when he has Xabi under his hands in a dim lit hotel room. Nothing's changed- and he wants to laugh, but _Nothing's changed,_ even though everything has. He's been doing the same things in different ways and hoping something different would come of it, and still this surprises him.

He leans back from kissing Xabi to just stare at his mouth, the same one he's seen on newspaper covers and tabloids and television screens, all those years and all the while thinking _I've kissed that mouth. I've seen it wrapped around my -_

Xabi makes an impatient noise, slides his hands down the inside of Steven's thighs and up and Steven's breath hitches. Xabi raises an eyebrow, infuriating, and then Steven laughs, of course, laughs and wraps a hand around the back of Xabi's neck and buries his face in Xabi's chest and lets Xabi fuck him, words in spanish dropping like kisses out of his mouth.

 

 

The sun was already filtering through the shades above the bed, straight in to his eyes when Steven wakes up, wincing. He holds a hand up against it, looks to his right. Xabi was lying facedown in bed, arm carelessly thrown over Steven's middle. Steven turns his head back, neck aching. His hand seemed almost translucent in the sunlight, bright red through his fingertips. Steven stares at it for a while, until Xabi stirs beside him.

“Stevie.” Xabi says, hoarse. He reaches a hand out against Steven's, palm to palm, so Steven leans down to kiss him, sunlight warm on his back.

So here it was, in the end, or the middle, or the beginning of something, evidence of a love that lasts beyond what Steven understood.

 

-

 

The last trophy of the season slips out of their grasp without them even putting up a fight for it. All their bravado falls apart in front of Villa. Steven feels that tide of panic again, stronger, coming back for the remaining breath in his lungs, squeezing his heart in its fist. He gets a free kick. He sends the ball straight in to the keeper's arms.

The last 5 minutes and they're finally trying, Liverpool, fucking finally, and it's an old story, isn't it. It's an old story, but there's no happy ending.

None of them could look each other in the eye afterwards. None of them could look _him_ in the eye. They think they've failed him, that it was their one way of making up for a shite season and it had come to- nothing. Steven doesn't know how to say the words that he usually says at this point, because- we go again? There was no more we.

He's the last one left in the changing room, everyone else half-assing their after match routine to get as far away from Wembley as possible. Steven sits there for a long while, not even unlacing his boots.

 

It hits him with a strange, murderous finality that- this was it. This was why he had to leave. He couldn't help them anymore, not in the way he wanted. He leans down, drops his face in to his hands. The armband was balled up in his fists, but it didn't matter because he's trying to unstitch the armband that he's sewn in to his bloody heart. It would not come apart. When he presses his fingers to his chest and tries to draw a breath, it doesn't come. He stays, winded, trying to breathe like a fish out of water, and he couldn't. It hurt like certain things- the hip injections, the broken bones, the sprains and knocks and his tendons unravelling themselves from his muscles from years of bad tackles- could never hurt.

So he's left with it, the pain, ( _pain, pain, it rhymes with rain, english rain and mud slicking his boots and he never gave up did he he never gave in and this is what he gets in the end)_ and he tries to believe again, just close his eyes and believe that it was all okay and it meant something and he couldn't.

 

So that's it then- he couldn't.

 

 

 

-

 

 

His mates phone him up later, four different phone calls from equally concerned people, all variations on, “Come on, Stevie, lets go to London. Let's go to Bouji's and get smashed, yeah?” and Steven doesn't even have to think about it. He says yes and Alex doesn't stop him. She just leans against the kitchen counter, Lourdes clinging to her legs, watching him bustle around trying to find his jacket.

“Why don't you come?” He says, stopping at the door.

“Girls have to wake up early tomorrow.” Alex says. “Get someone to drive you home, alright?”

Steven turns around. She's looking at him, expression carefully controlled, but he knows that break in her voice. He goes back and kisses her mouth, quick and hard. Then he drops one on the top of Lourdes' head too, ruffles her hair.

“I will.” He says, and bangs out the door.

 

He gets very steadily drunk on vodka, starting off the night slow because he couldn't shake off the memory of the catch in Alex's voice. He buys shots for everyone that asked, buys champagne because why the hell not, someone has to be celebrating something somewhere. In the end his mates just leave him alone at the bar, a circle of silence around him that not even the sympathetic barista could breach.

“Tough match, mate.” The man said, setting down another whisky in front of him.

“Thanks.” Steven says. If he stares at the whiskey long enough he can see straight through his own reflection, and maybe it's the alcohol but he can see his disappointing free kick replaying, right at the bottom of the glass.

“I mean, I'm an Arsenal fan so.” He shrugs, and Steven has to laugh at that.

“Cheers, mate.” He says, downing his drink in one go and gathering his jacket to leave. “Good luck for May.” He throws over his shoulder, not quite stumbling on his way out.

 

He calls Xabi in the car ride home, but he doesn't pick up. “Wanker.” Steven mumbles to himself, pressing the callback button for the fourth time in a row.

“Whats that?” The taxi driver asks, turning his head around.

“Nothing.” Steven replies, sinks down in the seat, the dial tone ringing again and again in his ear.

 

Xabi calls back when he's crawled in to bed in the spare room, the lights already turned off.

“Steven?” He says, concerned. “What's wrong?”

“Why didn't you pick up?” Steven slurs. It was getting hard to concentrate with nothing to focus on, everything blurred out in the darkness. He raised a hand but couldn't even see his fingers.

“I was at an event.” Xabi says slowly. “Are you drunk?”

“My phone's going to die.” Steven whispers. It seemed like something he should tell Xabi, because he didn't want him to think he'd just hang up. It seemed very important. “I'm on 3 percent, Xabs.”

“Go to sleep, then. Call me in the morning.” Xabi hesitates. “If you still want to.”

“I don't want to go to America, Xabi.” Steven sighs. “Fuck that. Fuck it- you know.”

Xabi doesn't say anything for a minute, long enough that Steven was about to let his hand drop, thinking his phone finally gave out. Xabi says, “It's going to be okay, Steven. I'll visit you. I promise.”

“You can't promise that.” Steven says. He swallows back against the nausea, and even worse, the rising tide of hope that was already washing away the temporary despair.

“I do.” Xabi says shortly. He sighs in to Steven's ear. “I will come to America.”

Steven digs the heel of his hand in to his eye sockets, and laughs through the tears. “Fucking hell, mate. I can't do it. Five more matches.”

“You can.” A beat, and then, “You always do.” And his voice was sure, confident of his words. Steven wants to ask him how he could possibly know that, how there was anything left to be sure of.

“Close your eyes, Steven. Go to sleep.” Xabi says. “I'm here. Just go to sleep.”

Steven rolls back in to bed, and drags the covers up to his chin. “Okay.”

_You always do._ He thinks Xabi says that again before he slides in to sleep, but perhaps he was only thinking it to himself.

 

Steven wakes up with the worst hangover of his life and the same three words in his brain. There's no mess or guilt or confusion.

_You always do._

Lying in bed with a splitting headache, he lets himself think, for a minute, of the future. Of Xabi standing on his doorstep in LA, wry, neat beard and suit but the same gangly restless young spaniard he'd met all those years ago underneath. He thinks about the first game of next season and wonders how early he'd have to wake up to catch it on the west coast. He thinks about sunlight coming through windows, phoning Carra after a match to bitch about misplaced passes, long white strips of beaches by the Pacific ocean. It comes to him, all of a sudden, this one clear thought that makes him want to laugh out loud.

He won't miss the rain.

 

 

_-_

 

 

Life isn't a tally, he knows. But if it were, his would go like this: 2 FA Cups. 3 League Cups. 1 Community Shield. 1 UEFA Cup. 2 UEFA Super Cups. Then- 1 Champion's League Trophy.

He doesn't win the Title, in the end. He came bloody close to it- but he never lifts that trophy, never took Liverpool to where he wanted it most. So the question is- is it really a happy ending if it wasn't one he wanted? What did he have if it wasn't something he could hold, to put in a cabinet or hang on the walls? What did he sell his youth and his heart and his head for? If someone took him apart and summed him up and sorted his life in to failures and victories, which pile would come out on top?

 

He doesn't know those answers. He has to live with that. But he does know- _(you always do)-_ he knows.

 

_-_

 

_this-_

 

He's running past the halfway line, running so hard he couldn't even feel the ache in his lungs or the strain in his legs. He outruns Dann, muscles past Ward, and he knows Raheem's behind him to the right and Coutinho's up to the left and he's waiting for a chance for that perfect pass, the ball eager against the curve of his foot, and he looks up- just a blur of blue striped red and neon green where their goalie stood.

Theres no thought, then, no second guessing, worries, everything gone. He does what he does because he was born to do it. Just the memory of a song and the hard sound of his boot hitting the ball perfectly, and how it looked, suspended in the air for an eternity. Steven turns away before it hits the back of the net.

He sees every single one of the faces sitting on the Kop, open faces like flowers, caught in mid song. He knows they'd be blazed in to his memory, forever and ever, and for a second he can see himself, too. Little boy in red, sitting on the stands, holding his dad's hand.

And then he falls to his knees as everyone starts to jump on him, tugging at his shirt and screaming his name, and buries his face in the pitch.

 

He breathes it in, and the grass was sweet.

The grass in Anfield was sweet on his lips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_"My relationship with Liverpool does not end after the summer. In fact, it will never end."  - Steven Gerrard_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) probably obvious, but the title is from Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill", the full quote is  
>  _Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,  
>  Time held me green and dying  
> Though I sang in my chains like the sea. _  
> 2) Xabi quotes Louise Glück's "Ithaca"  
> 3) This was the most impossible thing I've ever written. A week of insomnia, random fits of tears, viciously reading articles that talked about Stevie's life. Lets just say I now have an allergic reaction to the phrase "Not with a bang but with a whimper" _Fuck you, world. Steven Gerrard's life is not a fucking tragedy._ so um. massive thanks to everyone i've moaned to about Stevie leaving. 
> 
> and thanks to you too, for reading this far. i love you. comments are always appreciated  <3


End file.
